Arising from a decision of the SDA’s National Executive, there has been a modest adjustment in union fees.
Like any other organisation, our operational costs have risen over recent years as we strive to continue providing professional union representation and achieving excellent results for our members.

Some of this work has included:

• Preparing submissions to increase the annual Award wage;
• Successfully achieving Essential Service Payments and earlier wage increases for the bulk of our membership in 2020/21;
• Defending members’ penalty rates and loadings from the incessant attacks by employers and conservative politicians;
• Promoting the No One Deserves a Serve campaign in the Mainstream and Social Media. This campaign has been particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic;
• Representing members both individually and collectively in various industrial tribunals and courts;
• Lobbying and preparing submissions on industrial relations legislation such as casual employees’ rates and rights;
• Negotiating and re-negotiating over 100 Enterprise Agreements;
• Serving 34,000 members across some 2,000 sites throughout Queensland;
• Offering an increasing range of services, benefits and discounts to SDA members;
• Producing a wide range of publications including the SDA News, company and site-specific bulletins;
• Lobbying the Federal Government and Federal Opposition over issues such as restoring Sunday and public holiday penalty rates;
• Lobbying governments on matters such as free and safe car parking that impact our members and their families;
• Funding workers’ compensation legal costs for members;
• Created a Social Media presence.

The SDA is confident that our new fees will allow us to operate in a challenging industrial relations environment and will enable us to continue to function on a sound financial basis.
The new membership fees, operative from 1 July 2021 are:

• Members working less than 10 hours per week $ 4.20
• Members working 10 hours but less than 20 hours per week $ 7.50
• Members working 20 hours per week or more $10.50

*Members are reminded that union fees are tax deductible.